Friday, March 31, 2017

Spring has finally seemed to have sprung which in the world
of archaeology means the annual spring conferences are in full swing. The
Society for American Archaeology meetings are this weekend (March 29-April 2,
2017) in Vancouver, B.C. and we reported on our last blog on the Mid-Atlantic meetings. Our focus this
week is on the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology’s (SPA) annual meeting.
Next weekend, April 7-9, 2017 the 88th annual SPA meeting, hosted by
The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, State Museum of
Pennsylvania, Section of Archaeology will be held at the Radisson Hotel in Camp
Hill, PA. This year’s theme, Patterning
the Past:Current Contributions to
Pennsylvania Archaeology promises to be informative and encompassing topics
from prehistoric to historic site and artifact interpretations, technology in
archaeology as well as artifact curation.

As usual, the meeting will begin Friday afternoon with the
Pennsylvania Archaeology Council (PAC) symposium. This year’s theme is Public Outreach- Preserving the Past with
New Technology. These papers cover a range of topics that discuss different
forms of public outreach, the importance of public outreach and how technology
is currently used for new platforms and formats in public outreach. Sharing methods for engaging the public in
archaeology and increasing their awareness in their archaeological heritage and
site preservation is at the heart of this session.

The SPA annual meeting registration table is open on Friday at
12:00 pm, walk-ins are welcome! The program for the 2017 annual meeting
includes presentations in three sessions from Saturday morning through Sunday
morning. A poster session Saturday afternoon will highlight research by
students at the undergraduate and graduate level. Primitive games allow participants the
opportunity to test their skills at firestarting, atlatl accuracy and the
hammerstone toss. The annual dinner banquet Saturday night will feature guest speaker Dr. Robert D. Wall, Department
of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice at Towson University sharing
research on the Barton Site (https://sites.google.com/site/wmdasm/home/barton-village-site-18ag3)
, followed by the awards ceremony and live auction. Cordier Auctions will
conduct the fund raising auction which benefits the Society. Also,
the bookroom is open throughout the day on both Friday and Saturday. Book titles include Ice Age People of Pennsylvania , Indian Paths of Pennsylvania, The
Moravian Mission Diaries of David Zeisberger 1772–1781 and First Pennsylvanians. If
you are interested in archaeology or history, there are many titles of
interest.

The annual awards ceremony recognizes individuals
for a number of achievements in Pennsylvania archaeology including outstanding
avocational archaeologists, most archaeological sites recorded in the past year,
and for other significant contributions to Pennsylvania archaeology. Student scholarships are also awarded from the
Hatch Scholarship fund and the Kinsey fund.
The Lifetime Achievement award recognizes an individual who has been an
active member of the archaeological community for at least 25 years and has
made significant contributions to furthering both the Society and our
archaeological heritage in Pennsylvania.(http://www.pennsylvaniaarchaeology.com/Awards.htm)
The auction is a popular and exciting SPA
tradition, so be sure to bring a few extra bucks to bid on books,
archaeological field equipment, and gift baskets. Money raised will go to
benefit the Society, Elmer Erb Permanent Fund and Kinsey Scholarship fund.

The program concludes on Sunday morning with
another series of presentation session containing papers focused on the curation
and research of archaeology collections.

Please join us for an educational and entertaining
weekend. We hope to see you at the meeting!

The Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Inc. was organized
in 1929 to: Promote the study of the prehistoric and historic archaeological
resources of Pennsylvania and neighboring states; Encourage scientific research
and discourage exploration which is unscientific or irresponsible in intent or
practice; Promote the conservation of archaeological sites, artifacts, and
information; Encourage the establishment and maintenance of sources of
archaeological information such as museums, societies, and educational
programs; Promote the dissemination of archaeology by means of publications and
forums; Foster the exchange of information between the professional and the
avocational archaeologists.

Friday, March 17, 2017

Over a thousand visitors attended Charter Day at The State
Museum on Sunday, March 12. Janet Johnson, curator, and archaeology volunteers
were on hand to lead children and the young-at-heart through the petroglyph
drawing activity featured at this year’s Farm Show exhibit in the Nature Lab.

Photographer Credit: Don Giles

You’ll have an opportunity to meet archaeology staff at
future museum events this summer during the popular Nature Lab series on
Wednesday afternoons from late June to early August. Check the State Museum Events Calendar for
more details.

Conference activities kicked off on Thursday with a conservation
and gallery tour of the Mariners’ Museum and Park, Newport News, Virginia, and
a Coastal Plain Woodland Pottery Workshop in the afternoon.

Today, regular paper sessions begin featuring Paleoindian
research; Ethnoecological approaches; Conservation practices; Climate Change,
Natural Hazards and Archaeological Sites; Fairfax Co., VA Archaeology;
Prehistoric Archaeology; Montpelier; and
a honorarium session for Dr. Douglas W. Sanford. Kurt Carr, Senior Curator at
the State Museum will be reprising his dissertation work at the Thunderbird
site as the final morning contributor to the Paleoindian session at 9:40am. Additional
activities include the Student Committee Coffee Hour, “Afternoon Knapping”-
Experimental Archaeology with Jack Cresson, and the evenings Plenary Session- Augmented reality: how we transformed a
reality show into a unique teaching and learning opportunity, with Dr. Bill Schindler, who will discuss his
experience with the National Geographic series, The Great Human Race.

Saturday’s paper and workshop sessions continue with topics
ranging from Historic Sites; Archaeological Survey; the Biggs Ford Site; Connecting
museum collections in news ways with the public audience in the digital age;
Current Research at St. Mary’s College of Maryland; Gender Identity in the
Archaeological Record; Sherwood Forest Plantation, Stafford Co., VA; Domestic
Archaeology in an Early Industrial Context; Public Sites and Parks; to a
honorarium session for Leverette Gregory. The poster session will run Saturday afternoon
and the evening General Business
Meeting is capped with the festive
Student Committee Mixer at 7:30pm and Reception at 8:30pm.

This year’s
PAC symposium, Public outreach-
Preserving the Past with New Technologies, was organized by Bernard Means. The
Annual meeting presentations begin Saturday morning and will feature the research
of several of our staff curators—Melanie Mayhew, Kurt Carr, Kimberley Sebestyen,
and Janet Johnson—as well as SPA members and professional archaeologists from
across the Commonwealth. Other highlights from the weekend meeting include the
banquet speaker, Dr. Robert D. Wall, Towson University, presentation of Paleo to Susquehannock in the Upper Potomac
Valley: The Barton Site, and the ever popular Primitive Games to be held late
Saturday afternoon on the hotel grounds. The games are an opportunity to test
your flint and steel fire making skills, your spear throwing accuracy with an
atlatl, or how far you can toss a hammerstone to name a few of the friendly
competitions you can participate in as a meeting attendee. Cordier Auctions has
agreed to conduct our ever popular fund raising auction on Saturday evening
which is sure to hold many a treasure. We hope to see you there!

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

As many of our dedicated followers will recall,
this year’s Farm Show exhibit featured the petroglyphs of Pennsylvania. Petroglyphs are images that have been chiseled
into stone and are found throughout the world.
Many people associate the American southwest with this cultural
phenomenon but there are 42 petroglyph sites currently recorded in the Pennsylvania Archaeological Site Survey files, most
of them located in the Ohio watershed.

There are many different designs depicted. Some symbolic or animal in nature, others
more abstract in design and some undefinable.

The chart above describes some of the symbols but
there are many more beyond these and not all of them so easily
interpreted. I believe its human nature
to look at these pictures and speculate about the story that inspired someone
to spend the amount of time necessary to carve these designs into solid rock.

With all of this in mind, this year’s children’s
activity invited the children to tell us their story. After spending time looking at the exhibit
and hearing a little about petroglyphs

we provided a large sheet of paper, a dozen
templates of various documented petroglyphs from Pennsylvania and a box of
crayons…

The kids seemed to enjoy the activity and it was
interesting to see their response. As
promised to the children, here are some of those responses…

One repeated theme is the name. People throughout time have felt the need to
leave their mark. Whether it was the
symbols used by Native Americans, or the modern graffiti of “B Weaver”, people
want to say “I was here”.

The story depicted by the red circle is
reminiscent of a hunting story on Little Indian Rock at Safe Harbor Dam.

I think it’s also interesting to see the kids’
reflection on home, either for the natives as depicted in the blue circle above
or perhaps in a more personal way.

The activity was enjoyable for the kids; and gave
them an opportunity to apply their newly found thoughts on petroglyphs. It also afforded us a chance to observe the
behaviors of these little humans telling stories with pictures. After all anthropology is the study of human
behavior.

One Tank Trip

WFMZ-TV 69 from Reading, Pennsylvania visited The State Museum of Pennsylvania on February 8th, 2017. Karin Mallett prepared a feature piece on great places to visit that are one tank of gas from Reading and our gallery was the focus of this visit. Karin interviewed Kurt Carr, Senior Curator and Janet Johnson in the gallery and provide a nice overview of the spectacular exhibits. Please click on the link below and enjoy this glimpse of the museum during this One Tank Trip!
One Tank Trip: Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology

Followers

Disclaimer:

The views contained within do not necessarily reflect those of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) as a whole, nor the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.Comments and discussion are encouraged. However, posts that are deemed inappropriate or offensive will be removed. Users will not be notified when content is removed.